Re: CHAT: Definite/Indefinite Article Distinction

Jan van Steenbergen wrote:
>
>  --- Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> > My French isn't rusty for the simple reason that I don't know it, but
>the sg
> > indefinite article _un_/_une_, derived from _unus_, hasn't prevented
>French
> > from acquiring a pl indefinite article _des_.
>
>If you count "des" really as an article, you ought to include "du", "de la"
>etc. as well. But in fact, this is just the combination of a preposition
>with
>the definite article.
As said, I don't know French. A friend, who's studied it for half a decade,
told me _des_ was an indefinite article. Another francophone friend tells me
right now that "des" can be both a contraction of definite article+prep and
an indefinite article. He sent the following to a French guy on his ICQ
list:

"
can you confirm this for me:

french word: "des" is both:
1. plural indefinite article
2. what you get instead of "de" + "les"
"

and got as reply:

"
exactly ;)
"

                                                        Andreas

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